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TMCnet Unified Communications Week in Review

As always, this week was quite a busy one in the unified communications sector. Here's a brief look at some of the top stories from this week.

First, Parse and Twilio teamed up to make the latter company's voice and messaging APIs available to users of the former's Cloud Code in the form of the Twilio Cloud Module. By adding one line of JavaScript code, the new Cloud Module allows enables developers to take advantage of oice response, mobile app distribution via SMS, call automation and two-factor authentication with ease.

“Many mobile apps need telephony features, especially SMS. Our new Cloud Module makes it dead simple to hook up your mobile app to Twilio without having to maintain any intermediary servers at all,” said Ilya Sukhar, Parse cofounder and CEO.

In Australia, Citrix has challenged businesses to sample the cloud via 30-day trials of a few of its products in an effort to promote cloud commuting. Individuals and teams of up to 10 people can try any of the trial products for the full 30-day period free of charge.

Products included in this promotion are: GoToMeeting, a remote video conferencing solution; GoToMyPC, which lets users access computers and mobile devices through any Web browser; Podio, which offers work process and project management through a collaborative platform; and GoToAssist, which provides service desk management, remote support and IT monitoring.

Next, Mitel signed a distribution agreement with Tech Data Corporation in an effort to tackle the SMB market. The company chose TDC due to its significant market reach and presence which is likely to increase Mitel's own presence and reach.

TDC, meanwhile, expressed a similar sentiment regarding Mitel, stating that its off-the-shelf SMB platforms help enable a large part of the SMB market. Under the terms of the agreement, TDC will begin distributing the Mitel UC360 Collaboration Point and the Mitel 5000 Communications Platform.

In other news, Blue Insurance experienced a 30-percent cost reduction in managing its voice and data systems after implementing a ShoreTel UC solution with help from Voice Engineer Ireland. VEI used the ShoreTel Enterprise Contact Center to provide a fully-integrated UC system.

"Blue Insurance has a culture of investing in cutting edge technology and infrastructure to ensure we are providing the very best service to our customers, and the ShoreTel solution is helping us to provide an even deeper level of service,” said Rowan Devereux, joint managing director at Blue Insurance.

"This certification further exemplifies our commitment to ensuring that our products are interoperable with Toshiba's SoftIPT softphone, desk phones and unified communications offerings," said Pete Fox, president of Jabra North America.